Democracy Now! Blog

This year’s UN climate change conference has attracted many children from around the world. In Cancún, Mexico, Democracy Now! had the chance to speak with two children from the youth-led group Plant-for-the-Planet.

Youth climate activists from around the world are gathered in Cancún this week to push for a binding climate deal. Democracy Now! spoke to several of them on Monday at Cancunmesse, the main hub of NGO activity here at the U.N. climate talks. [includes rush transcript]

A large protest march is being planned today in Cancún organized by La Via Campesina and other groups. Alfredo Acedo, a spokesperson for UNORCA, described what is being planned. [includes rush transcript]

Protesters took to the streets of Cancún on Monday night to demonstrate against the U.N. COP16 talks. More than 150 demonstrators with the anti-capitalist bloc marched from the Via Campesina camp, where they are staying, through the streets and main thoroughfares in Cancún. [includes rush transcript]

Maude Barlow is an author, activist, and the former senior adviser on water to the United Nations. She is in Cancún to speak with other civil society organizations about the relationship between water and climate change and the need for climate justice. [includes rush transcript]

McKibben is the founder of 350.org and the winner of the 2010 Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship. Democracy Now! caught up with him at the Cancún Climate Conference over the weekend. [includes rush transcript]

WikiLeaks is again publishing a trove of documents, in this case classified U.S. State Department diplomatic cables. The whistle-blower website will gradually be releasing more than 250,000 of these documents in the coming months so that they can be analyzed and gain the attention they deserve.

Noam Chomsky is a Professor Emeritus at MIT, where he taught for over half a century. He is author of dozens of books. His most recent is Hopes and Prospects_. [includes rush transcript]Watch Part I of this conversationprofound

Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, makes great movies but they are not generally considered “cliff-hangers.” All that might change since a whistle-blower on the “Democracy Now!” news hour revealed that health insurance executives thought they may have to implement a plan “to push Moore off a cliff.”

Following our interview with Wendell Potter, the former chief spokesman for CIGNA, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann invited Potter on his show to discuss the health insurance industry’s attack on Michael Moore and his film SiCKO.

"Gitmo is going to remain open for the foreseeable future," said an unnamed White House official to The Washington Post this week. For guidance on the notorious U.S. Navy base in Cuba, President Barack Obama should look to an old naval facility in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

When Academy Award-winning film director Michael Moore announced he would be making a documentary about the American healthcare system in 2004, it put the health insurance industry on high alert. [includes rush transcript]

Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of the forthcoming book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. His previous book was titled Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. [includes rush transcript]

If a volcano kills civilians in Indonesia, it’s news. When the government does the killing, sadly, it’s just business as usual, especially if an American president tacitly endorses the killing, as President Barack Obama just did with his visit to Indonesia.

Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan — What price would you pay not to kill another human being? At what point would you commit the offenses allegedly perpetrated by Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was charged Wednesday with desertion and “misbehavior before an enemy?”